Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski warned that raising the prospect of Poland leaving the EU could become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as happened in Britain before Brexit.
"If you enter this path once, it then becomes a competition over nationalism and anti-European rhetoric," Sikorski told reporters.
He was responding to remarks Kaczyński made a day earlier at the Krynica Forum, an annual international conference in southern Poland, where Kaczyński said the EU needed fundamental reform.
'It all starts with negotiations'
Kaczyński, who leads the right-wing opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, listed several possible ways of reforming the EU, including influencing public opinion and negotiating a new treaty, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
If those methods failed, Kaczyński said a "tough and risky" approach could be considered. He pointed to provisions in EU treaties governing a member state's withdrawal and said the process could begin with negotiations.
"It all starts with negotiations—and simply start those negotiations," Kaczyński said.
He warned of a "consistent drive to transform the EU into a centralised state" that would have too much power over national governments. He also called the European Parliament in its current form a "parody," according to reports.
He said an opportunity may soon present itself for reshaping the bloc because new governments could emerge after elections in Poland, France and Spain.
'Thank you to Jarosław Kaczyński for his honesty'
Sikorski said Kaczyński’s remarks confirmed his long-standing concern that PiS was considering the possibility of Poland leaving the EU.
"For me, it was clear that when someone says the EU is the 'Fourth Reich,' that the EU is taking away our sovereignty, it means they are considering leaving," Sikorski said. "Today we have confirmation of my intuition."
He accused PiS of never having fully embraced EU membership, saying its politicians had traditionally referred to the bloc as "them."
"Thank you to Jarosław Kaczyński for his honesty," Sikorski said, adding that he hoped Polish businesses and farmers had heard his remarks.
Sikorski invoked Britain’s departure from the EU, saying British farmers now complain about increased bureaucracy while no longer receiving EU subsidies.
He also said British trade with EU countries had fallen by between 25 percent and 39 percent, depending on the sector.
He warned that leaving the EU would mean customs and regulatory borders with Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania, as well as renewed border controls and the loss of EU funding.
Sikorski also pointed to EU programmes such as the post-pandemic National Recovery Plan and SAFE, a European defence loan programme.
He said Poland was also due to receive about EUR 120 billion in the next EU budget under a proposed national allocation.
'Our government will not allow Polexit'
"Britain will cope because it has the English Channel and a nuclear bomb. For us, leaving the EU would be a catastrophe," Sikorski said.
"Our government will not allow a Polexit," he added, using the term for Poland's possible withdrawal from the EU.
Sikorski also said Kaczyński's comments represented a victory for the Eurosceptic ideas of Zbigniew Ziobro, the former justice minister who now faces criminal charges and is wanted by the government after he fled the country.
"Ziobro lost politically, but he won ideologically," Sikorski said. Ziobro repeatedly criticised the EU when PiS was in power from 2015 to 2023, including saying in 2021 that the bloc treated Poland "like a colony."
Other members of the governing coalition also criticised Kaczyński on Thursday.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X that Kaczyński "has just announced that Poland should begin negotiations on the terms of its withdrawal from the EU."
He added: "This is, among other things, what the struggle in Poland today is about—a tough struggle. I do not intend to lose it."
'Tusk, as usual, is lying'
Kaczyński rejected Tusk's interpretation, writing on X that "Tusk, as usual, is lying."
"The European Union is needed, but it requires fundamental reform," Kaczyński wrote. He accused Tusk and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel of contributing to the bloc's "current crisis" and said PiS wanted the EU to serve ordinary citizens rather than elites.
"We will restore the European Union to its citizens," Kaczyński wrote, arguing that reform could make the bloc more democratic, improve living standards, lower energy prices, strengthen security and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy.
PiS deputy leader Przemysław Czarnek also said on Thursday that the party had no plans to take Poland out of the EU, saying Kaczyński had been referring primarily to the need to reform the bloc.
Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, however, called on PiS and the far-right Confederation party to tell voters before the next parliamentary election whether they support leaving the EU.
He said they should "clearly say before the election whether they want Polexit and what they intend to do with the benefits that membership gives Poland."
Kosiniak-Kamysz wrote on X that the EU "should be reformed where necessary rather than threatened with withdrawal."
He also criticised the PiS party's opposition to the SAFE programme, which provides EU member states with up to EUR 150 billion in defence loans.
Kosiniak-Kamysz said Poland had received hundreds of billions of euros from the EU, including funding for roads, railways, rural development, investment and access to the bloc's single market.
Parliamentary Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty, a member of the governing left-wing coalition, accused Kaczyński of "normalising" the idea of Poland leaving the EU to make it seem more acceptable.
He also accused President Karol Nawrocki of "normalising" pro-Russian anti-EU politician Grzegorz Braun to make him seem more acceptable in Polish politics.
"They are heading East. We are staying," he wrote.
Government spokesman Adam Szłapka said Kaczyński was "pursuing Braun’s agenda," while the minister in charge of the security services, Tomasz Siemoniak, said Kaczyński's remarks ran counter to Poland's interests and security.
Siemoniak added that it was particularly troubling that Kaczyński had raised the possibility of EU exit negotiations "at such a critical moment for our security."
'Poland's place is in EU': ex-PM
Former PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who now leads the Development Plus political group, on Thursday supported Poland's membership of the EU, although he said the bloc needed reform.
"The EU needs reform, and that reform must happen much faster. What is happening today is far from sufficient, but we are not a political group that calls for a Polexit. On the contrary, Poland's place is in the European Union," Morawiecki said at a press conference in Warszawice near Warsaw.
Kaczyński’s remarks have also reignited debate over Braun, whose far-right Confederation of the Polish Crown has been accused by governing coalition politicians of being pro-Russian.
Nawrocki has defended the inclusion of Braun's political movement in Poland’s political debate, saying it has parliamentary representation and support among part of the electorate.
Nawrocki has called a meeting of the National Security Council for November 3. Governing coalition politicians have argued that lawmakers from Braun's political camp should not be invited.
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Source: IAR/PAP
Click on the audio player above for a report by Marcin Matuszewski